A New Management System To Become
the Leader You Were Meant to Be
Standout teaches managers how to raise performance AND discover the 'secret sauce' of the human potential of people working together to bring out their team’s best.
Ceree Eberly
Former Chief People Officer,
The Coca-Cola Company
Standout, cuts through the noise and re-centers managers on what really matters: mastering six pivotal conversations with their people.Â
Matt Dixon, Wall Street Journal Bestselling co-author of The Activator Advantage and The Challenger Sale, Founding Partner, DCM Insights
I spent 25+ years advising Fortune 1000 executives and managing global teams at public companies and start-ups (Gartner, CEB, Talent Neuron, Legg Mason).
One thing I learnt — most managers follow a flawed management playbook of always busy and accountable, but unsure how to make real progress. Standout shows you how to create an unfair advantage.
Standout empowers you to master the six conversations that redefine how managers lead today—the very ones that create clarity, earn influence, and move your career forward.
Strategy Conversation:
Know exactly what to focus on so your work matters.
Breakthrough Conversation:
Turn tough moments into breakthroughs and spark your team’s best work.
Performance Conversation:
Help your team get better so your results get better.
Goal Conversation: Get your team running on its own so you get your time back.
Partner Conversation: Collaborate seamlessly across teams so work moves faster.
AI Conversation:
Decide with clarity and anticipate what’s ahead.
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Upcoming release is in March 2026
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Learn why “focusing on what you control” quietly limits managers, and learn how to apply six conversations to Standout with your team and in your career.
The 10Â versus Standout Will Teach You
- Know exactly what to focus on so your work actually matters
- Turn tough moments into breakthroughs that spark your team’s best workÂ
- Help your team get better so your results improveÂ
- Build a team that runs on its own so you get 1-day a week back
- Collaborate seamlessly across teams so work moves faster
- Decide with clarity and be 10 steps ahead
- How to escape the daily grind regain real control.
- Turn everyday conversations into leverage.
- Lead without copying trendy frameworks that don't work.
- How speak hard truths early, with care so your team excels.Â
… and much, much more.
By Monday, you could be the leader you were meant to be.
More Praise for Standout
The nearly universal mandate of growth has a common, overlooked and human dependency, the manager.Â
Standout points an intensive spotlight on the scale of the opportunity and provides practical insights boards and CEOs can use to unlock their organization’s potential.
Aaron Kissel, CEO Assemble; Former General Manager of the Wall Street Journal; and Former Chief Product Officer at Politico
Managers don’t need more frameworks, they need better conversations.
I’ve seen Jaime turn real-world challenges into practical wisdom. Standout equips managers with six clear, courageous, and catalytic conversations that drive performance, alignment, and trust.Â
Jacques Antebi, Partner, Melitas Ventures, Former Executive Vice President KIND Snacks, Former McKinsey Partner
At Harvard Business School, we teach that the hardest part of management is not having the right answers, but knowing which questions truly matter. Standout takes that idea seriously.
Jaime Roca shows how exceptional managers use a small number of pivotal conversations to surface assumptions, create clarity, and move work forward when the path is genuinely uncertain.
This book expands what managers believe they are allowed to ask—and in doing so, expands what they are able to accomplish.
Derek van Bever, Harvard Business School, Senior Lecturer, Director of the Forum for Growth and Innovation.
Hi, I’m Jaime.
I’ve spent the last 25+ years inside organizations, helping managers and executives lead through uncertainty and scale their impact. Most recently, I was a General Manager and Global Executive Committee member at Gartner, leading global research, events, and advisory teams.
Along the way, I built $300M+ businesses, hired and developed hundreds of leaders, and advised thousands of Fortune 1000 executives.
While at Gartner, I co-authored the book, The Connector Manager: Why Some Leaders Build Exceptional Talent—and Others Don’t, pioneering how organizations think about manager development. I wrote Standout to share what separates average managers from leaders who rise above the rest.
